There was a lot people didn't hear. The stutter was only part of what I was living with. They didn't hear the decisions I made before I ever opened my mouth.
What had I already decided not to say?
In a restaurant, I could order what I could say instead of what I wanted. Before going out, I could be thinking about whether I would ask somebody out, where we would go, and what I would have to say. My speech got into all of those choices.
Work was part of it too. I took jobs where I wouldn't have to speak as much. There were chances I didn't take because I was scared of speaking.
The choice could happen before I reached the counter
When I needed to pay inside a gas station, I would park at a pump with a number I could say more easily. Standing in line and asking for twenty dollars on a pump felt like public speaking to me. I dreaded it.
I also described arranging for a friend to introduce me so I could avoid saying my own name. Sometimes that worked. I grew tired of trying to manage those introductions, and I have described what that did to my self-esteem. The worry could start before I met the next person.
What happened while someone else talked?
Sometimes it barely felt like a conversation. It felt like a one-way monologue with a few words from me. I was so focused on what my response would be that I wasn't really hearing the other person.
What words would I have to say? Which ones could I get around? That was the conversation in my head while they were still talking. Learning to listen meant working on that part of the experience too.
What stayed inside afterward?
I remember standing with friends and wanting to make a joke, then hearing someone else say it thirty seconds later. I couldn't, or wouldn't dare, say it myself. That is part of the loneliness I have described.
I could take the pain home and still have it in my head at bedtime. My parents and my sister didn't know how much I was going through.
I have also explained the word choices I made deliberately while working on my fluency, including word substitution and an easier name for an optional order. Those are choices I want to explain in their actual situations.
Someone else's account of hiding it
In a call, someone told me he had once been able to hide his stutter by avoiding a few difficult words. He said that, over time, hiding it made him more anxious and his speech got worse. I told him I respected what he was saying. That account and my response are included with my explanation of word substitution.